Social services in Italy tested by the pandemic: new challenges and scenarios

In the 2-year period 2020–2021, the serious economic and social costs of the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the already numerous structural issues of the national social system and raised new ones. In response to a significant increase in material needs but also a wide and diverse range of non-material needs (amplified by difficult situations such as a lack of self-sufficiency, loneliness, distance learning and problematic family settings), there is now an urgent need for innovation in social interventions by combining a bottom-up approach with direction from central authorities. This paper offers an interpretation of the pandemic’s impact on social services in Tuscany (Italy) by analysing the experiences of social workers and managers (22 in-depth interviews and two focus groups). The need created by the pandemic phase to reorganize the times and methods of social work has highlighted two distinct but closely interrelated perspectives: individually, the issue of redefining professional identities and self-representation; and collectively, the challenge of reorganizing social intervention with new methods and priorities, considering new healthcare measures for the containment of Covid-19. These two processes join the pre-existing ones of externalization and precarization. Against this backdrop, the essay examines two main research questions: first, how and in which ways communication time, relationship time and their ‘rhythms’ have changed during social intervention; and second, what impact containment measures and management of the epidemiological emergency had on professional practices.